When St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Brecksville, Ohio came to us looking for a church website, they had some very unique needs that we were able to help them with. As an Episcopal Church, they had a more traditional aesthetic, but they aren’t overly formal in their communication. They wanted to be able to highlight specific ministries, display upcoming events, and communicate clearly to their people along with potential new guests.
Discovering Who They Are
We started our process off with a discovery workshop. In this workshop, we asked the kinds of questions that would allow us to really understand who they are. This is critical for being able to build a website that is authentic to who they are. When we asked what their goals were for the project, they made it clear that they wanted the website to become a way to share what God is doing in their church and invite others to be a part of it.
Freedom to be Yourself and Serve God from Where you Are
This was a theme that came out early in our discovery process. They are a church that is focused on freedom to be who God has created them to be–and to allow them to serve and be an active participant in the ministry of the church.
Through God, we live by faith, serve generously, love unconditionally, and welcome all
This was their mission statement. Each piece of that statement describes their core values and offers insights into how they understand God and His relationship with people. One question we often ask clients during our discovery session is “If you had a bumper sticker, what would it say?” They responded with things like “I Love Everybody, you’re next.” and “God love you, no exceptions.” or “We welcome people, we open the door.” This is a church that values acceptance and unconditional love.
Building a Strategy for their Website
Once we completed our discovery session, our team took the insights we gained from it and developed a customized strategy for their website. Two of the key elements in this strategy were a stylescape and a sitemap. The stylescape served as a design guide for how the website would look and feel. With this stylescape, we tried to capture the relational nature of this church within the traditional context of their building and worship experience.
When we put together a sitemap of their website, we started with our main visitor flow that encourages potential guests to learn about the church, plan a visit, understand clear next steps they can take, and stay connected to the church. From there, we added pages for ministries, events, giving, resources, groups, and stories. This allows people to see clearly how they can grow in their faith and be involved in the church in various ways.
Building a Website for Growth
Using the Digital Church Platform, we built a website for St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church that would allow for long-term growth. They can add testimonial stories as people share how God is working in their life. They can manage an ever-changing list of groups and upcoming events. And they can write and publish blog posts to highlight the life of the church and improve their search engine results by adding new content.
Revisions
Once we build their website, we worked closely with them to process revisions. We install a tool called Feedbucket on our client sites so they can easily pin comments right on the website. Those comments integrate directly with our project management system so our team can process them quickly. This makes the revision process clear and efficient so we can launch faster.
Launching their Website
Once we completed all the revisions, we were able to launch their website to make it available to the world. As part of our launch procedure, we tested forms, different device screen sizes, and website speed to make sure we had built something that looks engaging and works in multiple contexts.
Unlimited Development
St. Matthew’s Episcopal had a solid understanding of the importance of their website. They knew that if we could continue to keep it up to date and continue adding new content to the website, it would increase their visibility in search engine rankings and ensure their investment in the website continued to pay off. As a result, they signed up for our unlimited development plan. This plan covers hosting and maintenance, but also add unlimited access to our team. We are just an email away from doing anything website-related that they want done.
Upgrades to a Marketing Retainer
Once we served St. Matthew’s for about a year, they inquired about our availability to do ongoing marketing work for them. This includes working closely with them to write blog posts, manage email marketing, and continue to update the website. Our retainer plans are paid for by number of hours, but they can include any kind of marketing tasks needed, which is often beyond just website content management.
